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in my sweaty gym clothes and still smelled like a man.
    “What are you doing here?” he
asked.
    “I didn’t know you also policed the
hospital and its visitors.”
    He stopped in front of me and
planted his hands on his hips. He wasn’t amused. And I saw him discreetly
sniffing at the air. Undoubtedly, he’d also detected the Axe. Despite the fact
my hair was still wrapped tightly on my head, it was pretty powerful.
    “Tell me you’re not here seeing
Stacy Karnes.”
    “Nope. Stacey Barnes . The
volunteer sent me to the wrong room.”
    He sighed and rubbed a hand over
his eyes. “You can’t be here; you can’t visit the victim of the crime you’re
involved with. It looks bad and complicates things.”
    “Involved? Whoa. You can’t
seriously think I hurt her, . . . can you?”
    “It doesn’t matter what I think.
We’re investigating an assault, maybe an attempted homicide; we have to rule everyone
out. That includes you.”
    I sighed and did a mental head slap
as a couple pieces fell in place.
    “That’s why you were at the office
this morning, talking to Paige,” I said. “You can’t talk to me because you
think I had something to do with it.”
    “I need to rule you out,” he
repeated. “And you still need to come to the police station and sign paperwork.”
    “The sooner you ‘rule me out,’ the
sooner you get back on track.”
    “Right. When were you planning to
come to the station?”
    “Isn’t it sort of a twenty-four-hour
place? I have stuff I need to do, so I can come by later tonight.”
    He reached into his pocket and
withdrew another card, which he passed to me. “I wouldn’t want you to
inconvenience yourself or anything,” he said, stepping around me. “Call me when
you’re planning to come in and I’ll meet you there.”
    “It’s on my list,” I shot back.
“I’m going to get my hair and nails done now, then I have a massage and
shopping to do, but maybe sometime after that, you know, unless something else
comes up.”
    He lifted a hand and waved it without
slowing or turning around.
    I was almost overwhelmed by the
urge to give him a hand sign of my own but managed to resist, taking the
elevator and exiting the hospital without any gestures.
     
    _______________
     
    It was a relief to discover the house empty when I got home.
I had no idea where anyone was, and I didn’t care. It was two o’clock in the
afternoon, and, with any luck, they’d all stay gone for another couple hours.
    I went to the garage and pulled
cardboard boxes from behind a large stack of plastic storage bins. I’d saved
them from my last move, knowing I’d need them again. I carried an armful back
inside to the basement and taped them together.
    The bookshelves had already been
cleared and the knickknacks wrapped up. I took a box to the desk and arranged things
inside, filing away loose papers in the drawers. It was mostly mindless work,
and I felt my thoughts drifting. I knew their direction, and I didn’t want to
go there. I put my iPod on its base and called up my favorite playlist then
cranked the volume.
    I took two more boxes and went to
the closet. I tried singing along while I stuffed sheets and other linens into
them. Inevitably, my mind wandered.
    What I knew about Stacy Karnes was
minimal. She was currently renting a house near campus and was interested in
moving. On the phone, I’d asked her if her lease was up, and she said she’d
found someone to sublet. Elizabeth Tower wasn’t too far from campus, but it
wasn’t as near as her current place. And while the apartments were competitively
priced, she would end up paying almost three hundred dollars more.
    Back at my office, I’d started a
file on her. After speaking with her, it was clear she was sold; looking at the
place was merely a formality. I’d run a background and credit check on her. The
results were in her file. From what I recalled, her criminal history was
nonexistent, and her credit was in good standing, even if